Leonard Peikoff wrote these words in 1989, in response to the Ayatollah Khomeini's fatwa against Salman Rushdie:
A religious motive does not excuse murder, it makes the crime more dangerous. It took the West centuries to move from medieval mysticism to the Enlightenment, and thereby discover the only safeguard against endless, bloody, religious warfare: the recognition of man's inalienable right to think and speak as he chooses. Civilization depends on reason; freedom means the freedom to think, then act accordingly; the rights of free speech and a free press implement the sovereignty of reason over brute force. If civilized existence is to be possible, the right of the individual to exercise his rational faculty must be inviolable.The ultimate target of the Ayatollah, as of all mystics, is not a particular "blasphemy," but reason itself, along with its cultural and political expressions: science, the Industrial Revolution, the American Revolution. If the assault succeeds, the result will be an Age of Unreason -- a new Dark Ages. As Ayn Rand wrote in Philosophy: Who Needs It, in her prescient 1960 essay "Faith and Force: The Destroyers of the Modern World":
"The conflict of reason versus mysticism is the issue of life or death--or freedom or slavery--or progress or stagnant brutality. . . . Reason is the only objective means of communication and of understanding among men; when men deal with one another by means of reason, reality is their objective standard and frame of reference. But when men claim to possess supernatural means of knowledge, no persuasion, communication or understanding is possible."
(Note: Philosophy: Who Needs It is worth a purchase and a read both for "Faith and Force: The Destroyers of the Modern World" and for the title essay, which was originally delivered as a speech to a graduating class at West Point.)
Peikoff goes on to make a point which could have been written about today's furore over the Danish cartoons about Muhammad:
Many people have denounced the Ayatollah's threats, but have then undercut their own stand by offering apologies to those whose "sensibilities" the book has "offended." No apology is necessary. No creed, Islamic or otherwise, which leads to "holy terror" can demand respect from civilized men.
Whether Rushdie's book in particular is good or evil, noble or depraved, is now irrelevant. Once death is threatened, there is only one issue to discuss and defend: an individual's right to speak, whether anyone or everyone likes what he says or not. "Blasphemy" violates no one's rights. Those who feel insulted do not have to listen to or read the insults. In defending religious liberty, Jefferson observed that "the operations of the mind" must not be made "subject to the coercion of the laws," adding:
"The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg."
But those agitating and rioting over the cartoons -- cartoons -- aren't talking about picking pockets or breaking legs: they're talking about executions and beheadings. And they sure as hell aren't talking about rights.
The problem is, many of those you would expect to speak out in defense of human rights aren't doing so, either.
Posted by Craig Ceely at February 19, 2006 08:04 PM